I publish therefore I am. Why academics have a problem

The fundamentals of being an academic is to contribute to the human society. To study and teach, to discover and invent, to gather knowledge and wisdom and share it with all humankind. Academia is an all-important ingredient to enlightenment and progress in our society.

Man is a self-conscious animal – we think, therefore we are. In a modern society, we also need to cooperate. The collective cooperation of people (thinkers) has made humankind prosper beyond any other species on the planet.

The information age has brought humans together in a way that is new to us, on a global scale. We thought this would be a good thing, and I still think it is, but it has also brought us problems.

Social media’s algorithmic approach has ground us into polarized groups digging trenches we refuse or find impossible to leave and from where we attack each other. False and twisted content floods the Internet and it is almost impossible to distinguish what is truth and what is false.

If you are an academic you probably spend a large part of you time trying to spread knowledge and get your message out. Internet is a wonderful tool for this. However, if you have something to say today, you have to share the stage on equal terms with false identities, “AI robots”, liars and charlatans.

Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash

A charlatan is a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill; a fraud. It is frustrating to observe how easy it is for a charlatan to get more attention than the actual academics. Even established publishers and news tend to give the frauds most attention, because they bring controversy to the public debate and publishers love controversy. For many people (and news providers) today facts are dependent on the beholder. An absurd idea.

The problem is not limited to general publishers, though. The disease has reached scientific publications where thousands of fraudulent and low standard publications dilutes the high standards a scientific publication once represented.

To publish your research in a scientific paper is one of the pillars of an academic’s professional life. It does not count to have the right ideas or research if you keep them a secret or simply do not care to share what you know or think you know. You need to fulfill the academic responsibility of spreading the knowledge. I publish therefore I am, is as true as I think therefore I am when it comes to being an academic.

Photo by Alex Block on Unsplash

Why is Publicisto relevant in this context?

Publicisto acknowledge the problem of fraudulent content but also the problem connected to be able to stand out in the crowd as who you are, what you have accomplished and what you can learn us. That is why we have built in structures to verify publishers on our platform. A verified account will be eligible for our rating system where we rate level of credibility based on things like your verified working history, where you are published, the number of publications you have, your connected chronicles and blog posts and so on.

By using Publicisto an academic will be able to stand out with relevant authority on the subjects he or she publish within. The overall published content will be available from their Publicisto account and all content will have links to where it is re-published or distributed and have a track-backs so people can follow the content back to the origin. With overall, we mean PDF’s, articles, videos, images, podcasts, reports, audio-books and e-books. Whatever digital format the academic choose to use, it can be re-published and distributed through their Publicisto account.

Other features on the platform will also be beneficial for academics like being able to sell their content by piecemeal, have subscribers and of course give customers access to exclusive content. An academic is not that different from other content providers. Some are even self-employed.